That Time I Moved to....: Szent István Day!

August 20th is an important day in Hungary. It is a National Day celebrating St Stephen (Szent István in Hungarian). St Stephen was the first king of Hungary way back in year 1000 (or 1001 depending on your source). The day is filled with many events and culminates with fireworks on the Danube.

I was particularly excited to see fireworks for this holiday because of my mishap with the 4th of July fireworks while I was in the US. The 4th of July was very wet where my parents live, and although the rain had stopped I couldn't find the level of patriotism needed to go stand in the humid aftermath amongst my fellow countrymen, to watch fireworks shot off while not being able to drink alcohol in the street. So instead I settled on watching the NYC fireworks on TV. However due to misreading the TV schedule we found ourselves watching a firework display set to overlaid music with commentary about an hour after the real thing. Needless to say I barely made it through 3 minutes before demanding it be turned off. Seriously it was awful, they drowned out the sound of the bangs. What are fireworks without their noise?

So I was excited for fireworks in Budapest.

Also, this seems as good a time as any to point out that most Americans pronounce Budapest in correctly. When saying Budapest you should say it as if it was spelled Budapesht. This is because "s" in Hungarian makes the "sh" sound in English. If you want the English "s" sound in Hungarian you write it as "sz".

So back to the festivities. As I've spent a bunch of money improving my apartment over the past few weeks, I didn't want to spend much money on this holiday. So instead of setting out early in the morning to participate, I waited until after a late lunch around 3pm to start out.

A friend had earlier warned me that I should decide which side (of the Danube) I wanted to watch from early in the afternoon or I might have difficulty crossing the river because some bridges close for the event. I'm not sure why but I've always had a soft spot for the Buda embankment of the Danube. It might stem from the first time I saw the Danube (in Hungary), experienced teachers brought me and my orientation group to see Parliament all lit up at night, we got off of the metro at Batthyány Tér and immediately saw, in all it's glory, the Hungarian Parliament building. I think that moment was the exact moment I started falling in love with this country. I just loved it's architecture.

I reached my "destination" by about 4pm and decided to have a look around. The first thing I learned is that if you go to a beer stand and ask for "alma" (apple) you don't get apple cider, you actually get some sort of strange apple beer thing. I don't know how to describe it. It was bad and kinda tasted like medicine. However I was lucky, the stand next to it was selling one of my favorite festival snacks.

Mhmmhhhmm

Kenyérlángos. Delicious. kenyérlángos is like a small pizza but instead of sauce you use a type of sour cream and you top it with onions and bacon. Lángos is a type of fried dough that is generally very greasy but this type isn't fried instead it is baked in little brick ovens. Normally it doesn't come with a bite missing, but the apple beer tasted soooooo bad. I just had to get the taste out of my mouth.

While enjoying my kenyérlángos I decided to walk along the river's walkway. Take a moment to look at the beauty of this bridge.

After enjoying a long view of the river I decided to walk to the cake tent. I haven't actually asked any of my Hungarian friends about this but I read that on St. Stephan's day the national cake and national bread is announced. So every year Hungary has a new national cake and a new national bread. I'm not sure if it's true but I definitely found a cake tent.

Cake Tent

If you wait in this line (and give them 600FT) you get a piece of the new National Cake! Being curious and a cake lover I decided to check it out. It took about ten minutes to get to the front of the line and I walked away with a piece of cake.

National Cake 2014

The cake was very good and layered in a way that we don't often layer cakes in the US. Instead of the same layers with the same icing, each layer was unique. Lets start from the top of the cake (dark brown layer). The first is a rich chocolate fudge icing (perhaps fondant), followed by a custard layer, the next layer (it's really thin) is some sort of citrus jelly, then chocolate custard, followed by some type of cake (I have no guesses as to what type). Over all it was very good but I didn't like the bottom layer, if I ate it on it's own. Now it was time to find a spot for the fireworks.

Perfect firework spot selfie :-)

My grandparents would have been very proud of me, I found a spot 3 hours before the fireworks started. They would be less proud of me for getting too bored to keep said spot but that's beside the point. I stayed at the perfect spot for about 30 mintues. Long enough to finish my beer and take a few photos of the firework barges getting into place.

Firework Barge and Tug Boat!

Shortly after watching this barge get into place I realized I was bored out of my mind. I had to do something pronto, there was no way I'd be able to sit there for another 2 1/2 hours. So naturally I decided to drink more alcohol. I bought myself some wine and decided to figure out what was for dinner. My favorite food to get from festivals in Hungary is definitely sausage. When you buy sausage at these festivals they are cooked in oil with various vegetables and chicken, and come with a big puddle of mustard and a few slices of bread. So I got dinner, talked to some fellow foreigners, drank some wine and still managed to find a decent spot an hour before the fireworks were scheduled to start.

When the fireworks did start, they were shot from three different barges and a bridge. Plus the beautiful Parliament was right there.

The fireworks went off in increments set to music that played in the background. One of the differences I noticed between the fireworks in Budapest and the fireworks in my hometown was the lack of participation from the audience. Where I'm from, you "oohhhh" and you "ahhhahhh" while watching fireworks. Here I didn't hear any "oohhhhs" or ahhhahhs" at all.

After watching the fireworks I decided to wander around a bit and enjoy another beer. I had read that if you wait about an hour after the fireworks end you can walk over the bridge in the car lanes. Being the rebel that I am (and having no desire to pack myself into a subway car) I decided that was something I needed to do. So I had another beer, spoke with some English speakers and then walked across the bridge :-)